Friday, May 4, 2012

Troubling Jobs Report

The April jobs report fell short of analysts expectations, as only 115,000 jobs were added. Consensus expectations had been in the 165K-170K range, which still would have been below the rate jobs were added in February, January, and December. While the jobless rate dropped slightly, the number of jobs added came in short of March’s disappointing level [...]

So how did the jobless rate drop? The same way it’s been dropping all along — people exiting the workforce:

The civilian labor force participation rate declined in April to 63.6 percent, while the employment-population ratio, at 58.4 percent, changed little.

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

Troubling.

Attention all discouraged workers: Obama requires that you not be. Get back to work.

In April the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to
88,419,000. This is the highest on record. The flip side, and the reason why the unemployment dropped to 8.1% is that the labor force participation rate just dipped to a new 30 year low of 64.3%.

Remember, this is the environment in which Obama's big campaign slogan is "Forward". We're at a "30 year low" in labor particpation as it is. By resolutely moving forward -- and in the current direction -- it would seem Obama's goal is to reach "unprecedented".